Quote from: AyeYo on August 15, 2011, 01:32:35 AM

Quote from: MoonShadow on August 14, 2011, 04:59:03 AM

Quote from: AyeYo on August 14, 2011, 01:34:16 AM

I find it highly ironic that the crowd which blasts the dollar for being valued far in excess of its intrinsic worth is the same crowd that champions gold and silver, two metals (especially gold) that are valued grossly in excess of their intrinsic worth. The industrial demand for gold take alone would place its price at only a fraction of a fraction of where it currently is, and the same goes for silver (which is why it's historically traded around the $5 mark, except when bandwagons form).

There is no such thing as 'intrinsic worth'. All value is a subjective calculation. Gold is worth what someone will trade for it. The same thing is true about steel, mercury, salt or real estate.

And fiat currencies, but that item is conveniently always left off the list.

A fair point. I had assumed that this was an obvious fact, and that it didn't need to be pointed out. Sorry for overestimating you once again. I'll try to do better next time.

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In fact, as ansible adams point out, fiat currencies seem to be the value store of choice for all major corporations and, quite frankly, nearly everyone else as well. Why is that, given that you're claiming gold and silver are the most stable stores of value?

I challenge you to find a single US corporation or major investor that keeps more than 10% of their savings in cash. They value it in cash, but very little of it is actually kept in cash. There is an obvious reason for this.

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And just FYI, when people refer to intrinsic value they're not talking about some magical, a priori worth; they're referring to the item's actually usefulness as a life-sustaining commodity. Paper dollars can be used to start a fire, so that's some small amount of intrinsic value. Gold can be used for... well not much of anything outside of advanced industry.

As noted, I have to be careful with you, AyeYo. I can't assume that you understand what this economic terms actually mean. As for gold's 'use value', it makes for a hell of a ship ballast. Good for bullets as well. And silver has well known anti-bacterial properties, which are useful to everyone should the collapse of civilization destroy the monetary value of silver. I challenge you to tell me what use a pint of mercury has to Mad Max.